Letters

Finger On The Key

Fawcett's piece, "Reforming the United Nations," (Peace, March/April 1994) does some very helpful thinking on the problem of the U.N. force. I don't think it has all the answers-we don't yet even have all the questions about what to do if the institution of war is dismantled-but he has certainly put his finger on some key issues.

David McReynolds, War Resisters League

Arms Trade Links

Canada is the ninth-largest military producer in the world, twelfth in military exports. The Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT) invites participation in linking military exports with the issues of development and human rights. COAT is establishing contact with organizations in countries to which Canada exports military equipment We are asking them to write our government, urging it to stop Canada's deadly exports. In the last issue of Press for Conversion! we published letters from Burma and India illustrating the effect our military trade has on the people of these countries. We recently received three more letters from Burma and want to distribute them as widely as possible. Many Canadians don't know about the devastating effect of our military exports. In Press for Conversion! #14 we published a table comparing Canada's recent military exports with human rights abuses

in the countries to which Canada sells military equipment.

Richard Sanders, Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade, Ottawa

Kudos For Peace

I was so impressed by the articles in the sample issue you sent me that I am subscribing. You are rendering a true educational service amid many false claims to such.

Tanya Middlebro, Ottawa

VANA And World Court

The Ontario-Quebec Conference of Veterans Against Nuclear Arms met on June 7. Canada has yet to respond to the invitation of the International Court of Justice. We adopted unanimously a resolution asking that Canada submit a brief by June 10 arguing that nuclear weapons are illegal.

Barbara McKee, Toronto

Likes LETS A Lot

I was happy to see the article on LETS. I've been interested in LETS for a long time. Automation is taking over. Some believe that the way to protect jobs is to preserve the labor intensive practices of the past. Thirty years ago futurists were saying that by the year 2000, leisure time would have increased because machines would be doing all our work. But all that wealth has not been equitably distributed. Instead, "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer." is not just the quaint gripe of poor losers. It is a trait of any competitive economic system. Trickle-down economics never worked in a capitalist system. Money does not trickle down in competitive systems. It flows upward to the rich..

I heard on the radio this morning that the recession is over but unemployment will remain at its current high levels. I wonder what they think a recession is. We're not seeing an end to the recession, we're seeing the collapse of the world economic system. The powerful players are becoming desperate, hence NAFTA. People are starving in Central America while multinationals grow crops for export. The homeless in Canada don't starve. They freeze.

Fred Williams, Bolton Centre, Quebec

Hello From Dhaka

Greetings from Sampreeti, an organization for peace and development in Bangladesh. We are interested in contact with your activities in Canada. We are working to develop a network for promotion of nonviolence in Bangladesh.